By Angela Gunn and the Betanews Staff, Betanews
Certain Web standards have been in place since the mid-1990s, since there was a Web. And certain companies rose to prominence by promoting their use. But when it comes time to evaluate which is more convenient, a few microseconds of delay or private communication in the clear, suddenly it's Google that's hiding behind a wall of public relations. Google's listening to its users now, and yesterday it demonstrated that fact, but why all the fuss about this privacy kick everyone's on?
Google considers defaulting to encrypted connections
Afternoon of Tuesday, June 16 • An open letter sent recently to Google CEO Eric Schmidt signed by 38 high-profile security figures including noted researcher and BT Group CSO Bruce Schneier, urged Google to consider the simple act of using Secure Sockets Layer to encrypt communications between its applications and its servers (Wired has the PDF).
Yesterday, in a post to the Google Online Security Blog indicates the company may experiment with the concept to see if this encryption thing actually works, and if it does, to provide default privacy protection for Gmail, Docs, and Calendar.
"Support for HTTPS is built into every Web browser and is widely used in the finance and health industries to protect consumers' sensitive information. Google even uses HTTPS encryption, enabled by default, to protect customers using Google Voice, Health, AdSense and Adwords," the letter read. "Rather than forcing users of Gmail, Docs and Calendar to "opt-in" to adequate security, Google should make security and privacy the default."
This HTTPS thing could really go somewhere, says Google Engineer Alma Whitten in her blog post yesterday. "We're planning a trial in which we'll move small samples of different types of Gmail users to HTTPS to see what their experience is, and whether it affects the performance of their e-mail. Does it load fast enough? Is it responsive enough? Are there particular regions, or networks, or computer setups that do particularly poorly on HTTPS?"
Google doesn't want to adversely impact anyone's online experience -- perhaps a 0.1% slower connection is not worth the privacy breach. Whitten adds that secure connectivity has always been an option for Gmail users, who are certainly free to opt in. Underscoring that she's proud of her company's security record, she noted in an update that the PhD.s in the letter took a swipe at Google's competitors: "Google is not the only Web 2.0 firm which leaves its customers vulnerable to data theft and account hijacking. Users of Microsoft Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Facebook, and MySpace are also vulnerable to these attacks. Worst of all, these firms do not offer their customers any form of protection. Google at least offers its tech savvy customers a strong degree of protection from snooping attacks. However, due to the fact that HTTPS protection is disabled by default and only enabled via an obscure configuration option, most regular users are likely to remain vulnerable."
Genachowski FCC hearings a convivial gathering
Morning of Tuesday, June 16 • A sparse but friendly group of Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee members had nothing but love for Julius Genachowski on Tuesday as the Senate prepares for hearings to confirm his appointment as head of the FCC. Most observers expect that process to be concluded by the Independence Day break -- perhaps even today, according to the Washington Post's Cecilia Kang.
PC Week's Roy Mark points out that nine Republican members of the committee were "boycotting" the hearing, leaving just two, Kay Bailey Hutchinson (TX) and Mike Johanns (NE). Mr. Johanns also took the day off after giving a brief statement saying, "If you aren't qualified, then I don't know who is." The Post's Amy Schatz noted that Genachowski, who has served at the FCC in two other administrations, supports using stimulus money to extend broadband service to underserved areas, and does not support resurrecting the "Fairness Doctrine" that some fear would stifle political speech.
Click fraud against Microsoft was a family affair
Monday, June 15 • Erika Morphy at E-Commerce Times reports that when Microsoft filed a civil claim on Monday against a trio of Canadians who allegedly used botnets to mess up advertising revenues for certain sites using Microsoft's ad platform, they didn't have to cast a wide net: The perpetrators are all family. Melanie Suen is the mother of Eric and Gordon Lam, and the three of them are accused of the click fraud, which Microsoft says cost over a million in reimbursements. The company seeks at least $750,000 in damages -- and a legal precedent. Cadie Metz at The Register has a good basic explanation of how this particular fraud worked and how the practice is affecting the industry.
Apple tells Pre users no one in particular it may cut off iTunes integration
From now on, most likely > Apple didn't mention any specific "unsupported third-party digital media players" by name, but commenters around the Web were pretty quick to infer that the company was dropping a hint to Pre Media Sync users with a support bulletin warning that "because software changes over time, newer versions of Apple's iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with non-Apple digital media players."
"Apple designs the hardware and software to provide seamless integration of the iPhone and iPod with iTunes, the iTunes Store, and tens of thousands of apps on the App Store," the warning reads. "Apple is aware that some third-parties claim that their digital media players are able to sync with Apple software. However, Apple does not provide support for, or test for compatibility with, non-Apple digital media players and, because software changes over time, newer versions of Apple's iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with non-Apple digital media players."
PreCentral points out that it's "mighty silly, given that all of the music in the iTunes Store is now DRM-free and Apple has no reason to be kicking people out of their happy little ecosystem." Macworld's Philip Michaels took a different view, saying that Apple has a history of making good on such warnings, and cautioning, "take note, Palm Pre owners -- that next iTunes update could be a doozy."
And CrunchGear notes an odd poll, which apparently indicates that two-thirds of respondents think Apple should have the right to block people from putting music on whatever devices they will. Devin Coldewey has some fun with it: "The willingness of the Apple crowd (and I'm typing this on a Mac so don't start a flame war, kids) to knife themselves in the back is astounding. Apple's products may be the future, but that's only if the fanboys let the future get here in the first place."
Jammie Thomas, day 3
All day today > More trial. More error. See our separate article for a recap of Tuesday's two most wince-inducing moments -- one for each side.
AFTER THE JUMP: Your tax dollars at work...
Wednesday's tech headlines
The New York Times
• Congress would like to know why the NSA's domestic surveillance program is so much larger than the agency previously admitted. In particular, your representatives are wondering about the scope of domestic e-mail surveillance efforts, which analysts connected to the agency have confirmed scrutinize large amount of citizens' e-mail without a warrant. James Risen and Eric Lichtblau have coverage.
• As Iran roils, Michael Wines has a nice story from China about how citizen expressions of mass displeasure are actually doing some good -- though it gets a little mob-justicey now and then.
Ars Technica
• Animations in PowerPoint aren't just stupid, ugly, annoying and generally ill-conceived. John Timmer reports that a recent study indicates that adding animations torpedoes viewer comprehension.
• Canonical, light of the world which tends Ubuntu distribution, has plans to tidy up a bunch of little annoyances with its One Hundred Paper Cuts project. It's slated to finish up operations before the planned launch of karmic Koala in October. And yes, even you can contribute your pet Ubuntu annoyances; in fact, developer David Siegel suggests that would be a good way for n00bs to get involved in the community.
• Sun may be canceling its high-end Rock server chip.
Wall Street Journal
• Nvidia's Jen-Hsun Huang has some big ideas about GPU computing, a process that would shift a great deal of your computer's numbers-crunching off the CPU and onto the graphics subsystem. And Nividia can help, since "Doing graphics only is a disservice to humanity" according to Mr. Huang. Don Clark has details.
• The IRS is changing its mind about stepping up enforcement of 20-year-old tax laws concerning the personal use of employer-provided cell phones.
• Uh-oh: Some students might be using Wolfram Alpha to avoid actually doing their math homework. Dr. Wolfram's okay with that, but a lot of educators aren't.
• Recapping Tuesday's tech earnings reports, Best Buy made money during its Q1, while Adobe's Q2 declined, but both stocks fell (by 7.3% and 2.3% respectively). If you want advances, you need Palm (up 1.6% after analysts gazed favorably upon the Pre) or Microsoft, which rose even as Yahoo declined, and for the same rason -- the increasing unlikelihood of a Microsoft-yahoo search collaboration. Rob Curran wraps these things up so tidily.
The Register
• SCO has a deal with an investment firm called Gulf Capital Partners. The firm was previously expected to be dissolved in a Chapter 7 hearing this summer; if the deal goes through, it would keep alive SCO's unending Unix-licensing claims against IBM and Novell. Austin Modine eschewed the obvious undead / zombie / Jason-from-Friday-the-13th cracks and went with a nuclear holocaust / roaches motif for this article. The commenters fixed that for him, throwing in a Rasputin-assassination reference for good measure.
• On October 1, IBM will roll out a "Software Secure Support via USA Citizens" package, for commercial and federal customers who need not to discuss their computers' little tantrums with foreign entities.
TechCrunch
• Michael Arrington takes up the issue of whether Facebook ought to get rid of its the Holocaust-denial groups, a controversy that heated up over the weekend. The writeup is gripping -- apparently most Facebook employees support the retention of those groups -- but the very, very long comments section could cause retinal bleeding. (Though it's a great deal more intelligence than the groups themselves, but I didn't need to tell you that.)
• Look for Facebook to start beta on an "everyone button" next week. The site hopes to encourage people to share their information and photos not just with friends but with the whole world. (Shades of Twitter, yes.)
• MG Siegler really doesn't like a promotional campaign Microsoft has going for IE down in Australia right now, feeling that its incompatible-browser message was rude and kind of mean to Mac folk (who, of course, haven't got an IE browser and thus cannot go on Microsoft's $10,000 treasure hunt).
San Jose Mercury-News
• A successor to silicon? Scientists at Stanford say that bismuth telluride has some intriguing electromagnetic properties that could make it a new-gen successor to the material we currently know and love.
• A study conducted by the Association for Computing Machinery says that while 45% of high-school boys think it would be "very good" to major in computer science, just 10% of girls think so. The stats for tech jobs are split about the same, with 38% of boys and 9% of girls thinking that sounded like an appealing path. Chris O'Brien jumped to the same initial conclusion your reporter did: Damn those Disney princess movies.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009